The Academy Awards are tomorrow & don't tell me you aren't watching. I've not yet seen most films that I'd planned on--shrinking bank account, you know. Meanwhile, I can't help saying that it was wonderful growing up & watching stars like Audrey & Grace from afar (actually, they were mostly retired by then, but still in Look, LIFE , & other magazines. I was very aware of them). Oh, there are great actors & stars today. But like them? None come to mind, at the moment. Why do you think there are so many blogs, books, & so forth with references to (or even about) Audrey?My oldest cousin is named after an Audrey film. If Sabrina weren't such a lovely person, I would have been insufferably jealous. (Indeed, I was on the verge of insufferable the afternoon I found out about this film "Sabrina"--I was too young to know & certainly didn't see it until I was, perhaps, 10 years old. I complained of this unfair advantage I imagined Sabrina possessed to my proper grandmother; she put me in my place--nicely.). In case someone young(er) reads this, Sabrina was not a popular name in America at the time.
My second-degree-of-separation-from-AH moment. Indulge me. In 2006 at a local Amnesty International holiday event (in a bookstore), I told a colleague that I had to pop off for a sec to purchase my traditional Christmas gift to myself, an Audrey Hepburn wall calendar. His children (brought at my request--lure people with cute kids--yes, I am shameless) began whispering excitedly as soon as I said "Audrey Hepburn." Their mother Kathy walked in from parking the car & we finally met (after many missed opportunities). The children were beside themselves at this point, wanting their mother to tell me something. I couldn't imagine what was going on.
Longish story short: Kathy played the bratty little kid "Ruthie" in "Two For the Road!" Kathy obviously wasn't one to brag & name drop & I was too polite to ask tons of questions. But, she did tell me that AH was lovely to her (of course). AH sent Kathy cards intermittently throughout her life (birthdays, graduations, wedding, holidays), a wedding gift, flowers when she had the children. Isn't that just what you wanted to be the truth? Me, too. An elegant ciao-meow, darlings!
(photograph by Alan Grant/LIFE Photographers via artnet.com)